Companies have ‘personhood,’ ie. a legal identity equivalent to people in the sense that they can enter into contracts and agreements (see Wikipedia article). This is a subject of considerable argument, and there are several campaigns to remove this status.
On the other hand in New Zealand there is a move (reported in the New Zealand Herald here) to give a river the status of a person, for the river to have a legal identity. If we accept that all things have agency, not just human beings, this legal recognition of the personhood of a river, developed from the indigenous knowledge tradition and by the Whanganui River Iwi, is incredibly important.
To give a river (or presumably a mountain, valley or island) this status of personhood is important because it repositions us, human beings, within the environment, rather than over it.
Where the problem with corporate personhood is that it requires the law to respect corporate interests as equivalent to the interests of people, the positive benefits of giving at least some natural features some legal agency or status as persons is potentially transformative.
The recognition of indigenous knowledge traditions is of course also enormously positive and challenging to Western epistemologies. If the river is a person, what does the river know, and how do we value that form of knowledge.
September 11, 2012 at 10:09 pm |
This is quite an achievement and I’m lucky to be home in NZ at the moment to hear this news and also news of the Urewera region be given back to the Maori tribe. Both significant milestones here but yes the river have legal standing is fantastic news. I believe this helps in the idea of moving towards a legal framework to prevent and recognise ecocide. You may also be interested to see paintings and images of the Whanganui, my great grandmother was one of the first Europeans to live in the northern reaches of the great Whanganui http://www.blurb.com/books/2053584, somehow I think she still inspires my own work too
September 12, 2012 at 11:11 pm |
[...] You can read more here from our newspapers here, New Zealand Herald and the Whanganui Chronicle. Chris Freemantle of Ecoartscotland was quick off the mark to review this as a historic step too and how for the first time a river [...]
September 17, 2012 at 2:18 pm |
[...] You can read more here from our newspapers here, New Zealand Herald and the Whanganui Chronicle. Chris Freemantle of Ecoartscotland was quick off the mark to review this as a historic step too and how for the first time a river [...]
September 23, 2012 at 1:11 pm |
[...] Agreement entitles Whanganui River to legal identity | September 23rd, 2012 | Leave a comment This post comes to you from EcoArtScotland [...]